A Python library to use the what3words REST API.

The what3words Python library gives you programmatic access to convert a 3 word address to coordinates (forward geocoding), to convert coordinates to a 3 word address (reverse geocoding), and to determine the currently support 3 word address languages.

To use this library you’ll need a what3words API key, which can be signed up for here.

To install what3words, simply:

$ pip install what3words

Installing the latest version from Github:

$ git clone https://github.com/what3words/w3w-python-wrapper.git
$ cd w3w-python-wrapper
$ python setup.py install

Forward geocodes a 3 word address to a position, expressed as coordinates of latitude and longitude.

This function takes the words parameter as a string of 3 words 'table.book.chair'

The returned payload from the forwardGeocode method is described in the what3words REST API documentation.

##Reverse geocoding

Reverse geocodes coordinates, expressed as latitude and longitude to a 3 word address.

This function takes the latitude and longitude:

• 2 parameters: lat=0.1234, lng=1.5678

The returned payload from the reverseGeocode method is described in the what3words REST API documentation.

##AutoSuggest

Returns a list of 3 word addresses based on user input and other parameters.

This method provides corrections for the following types of input error:

• typing errors
• spelling errors
• misremembered words (e.g. singular vs. plural)
• words in the wrong order

The autoSuggest method determines possible corrections to the supplied 3 word address string based on the probability of the input errors listed above and returns a ranked list of suggestions. This method can also take into consideration the geographic proximity of possible corrections to a given location to further improve the suggestions returned.

You will only receive results back if the partial 3 word address string you submit contains the first two words and at least the first character of the third word; otherwise an error message will be returned.

We provide various clip policies to allow you to specify a geographic area that is used to exclude results that are not likely to be relevant to your users. We recommend that you use the clip parameter to give a more targeted, shorter set of results to your user. If you know your user’s current location, we also strongly recommend that you use the focus to return results which are likely to be more relevant.

In summary, the clip policy is used to optionally restrict the list of candidate AutoSuggest results, after which, if focus has been supplied, this will be used to rank the results in order of relevancy to the focus.

http://docs.what3words.local/api/v2/#autosuggest-clip

The returned payload from the autoSuggest method is described in the what3words REST API documentation.

Retrieves a list of the currently loaded and available 3 word address languages.

The returned payload from the languages method is described in the what3words REST API documentation.

For safe storage of your API key on your computer, you can define that API key using your system’s environment variables.

$ export W3W_API_KEY=<Secret API Key>

>>> import what3words
>>> from os import environ
>>> api_key = environ['W3W_API_KEY']
>>> w3w = what3words.Geocoder(api_key)
>>> res = w3w.forward(addr='prom.cape.pump')
>>> print(res)

>>> import what3words
>>> from os import environ
>>> api_key = environ['W3W_API_KEY']
>>> w3w = what3words.Geocoder(api_key)
>>> res = w3w.reverse(lat=51.484463, lng=-0.195405)
>>> print(res)